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Stop Whining About Gas Prices. Seriously

by Darwin on April 24, 2011

If I see one more jackass complain about spending $100 to fill a gas tank I’m gonna go medieval. Here’s why:

We pay less for gas than most humans – Sure, some OPEC countries subsidize their gasoline even more than we do. But, well, they live in pretty horrid conditions and we’re seeing how that arrangement is working out. Syria’s the latest country to be shooting funeral mourners this week, so when you do shit like that in the region, you’ve gotta subsidize gas pretty good. It’s no wonder Europeans are disgusted by Americans. They have to import most of their energy needs (they’re worse off than us!) and they live a much more energy efficient lifestyle. They walk. They ride bikes. They don’t litter. They don’t buy crap they don’t need like we do. And they pay almost double what we do for gas. If they don’t complain, you can’t complain.

We pay more for bottled water – and lots of it. At least gasoline has some utility. Bottled water is a complete scam and Americans can’t get enough. Americans spent over $10 Billion on bottled water in 2009. On a volume basis, we pay way more for water that we don’t need in a bottle. WTF!

If you have a 25 gallon tank, your vehicle is too damn big – With some simple math, watching the schmuck on the local news makes me wanna shoot the TV “Dancin’ with the Stars”-style. It’s like complaining about your mortgage payment when you bought a 5,000 square foot home. Or complaining about your food bill when you’re 700 pounds. Of course it’s gonna cost a lot to fill up your car! Your memory is as short as a goldfish (or hamster; still a debate on which creature has the shortest memory on earth). When gas prices were high 2 years ago you complained. They tanked during the recession and you bought a huge car. And now you’re complaining again. Sell your car, buy a hybrid. Prices drop buy an SUV again. This absurd cycle continues because we are a fickle, entitled, “Daddy I want this NOW” society. Think about the long-term. Think about someone beside yourself. If you don’t need it or can’t afford it when the inevitable price increases occur, then don’t buy a gas-guzzler.

It’s Your Fault You Live 50 Miles from Work – I work in a moderately priced area (East Coast), so if you want to live near our office, you can expect to pay $500-$700K for a nicer new home, possibly in the 400s for something 5-10 years old. That’s not a lot compared to California or New York City of course, but more than most of the country. I work with a lot of people that want to pay $300,000 for a 3500 square foot home because they couldn’t bear the thought of living in something more modest. They want the McMansion but they don’t want to pay McMansion pricing. So, they move out into the sticks to buy the huge house and commute in. Thus, when your commute starts costing you more, that’s a personal choice you made! When you signed up to commute 2 hours each day, you chose to trade months off your life commuting, miss all your kids’ sporting and school events, waste a ton of gas and depreciation, subject your kids to a questionable school district and subject yourself to fluctuations in the price of gas. And when you and your wife both drive gas-guzzling SUVs? Well, enough said. You should know better. Suck it up.

Don’t Do This

Aside from not complaining, you should also not do this:

Don’t fall for the stupid gas-saving myths going around the web. You don’t get more gas if you pump in the morning or daytime or nighttime. I can’t believe anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of fluid dynamics would ever propagate this. It’s like me telling you about the purported Coreolis effect in the toilet bowl or how relativity changes your lifespan by flying in a plane. Is there possibly some imperceptible difference between two frames of reference? Possibly; but clearly not worth acting on or even trying to measure. Buy your gas when you need gas.

Don’t boycott oil companies and gas stations. This is stupid. Aside from the fact that it’s not their fault prices are what they are (it’s yours), the boycotts are ineffective and you’ll end up embarrassing yourself because others will know how stupid you are. If you choose not to buy gas tomorrow but instead buy one extra day’s worth the next day, well, you didn’t really accomplish anything.

You Might Try This:

Instead of whining, do something.

Stop being so damn wasteful. Simple, just stop. Also, don’t drive like an ass (driving fast is less efficient) and keep your tires inflated. These are HUGE gas-savers.

Hedge Your Own Gas Prices. I do this each summer and it has worked out every time. We all know gas prices rise in the summer and I present some very simple and effective ways to mitigate the price increases at my ETF site.

Don’t pay more than you need to. Use Gasbuddy on the web if you don’t have a smartphone and if you do, pay the buck or whatever for the App. You’ll make the money back in 2 weeks. Pay the lowest price for gas by simply taking the 30 seconds out of your busy life to plan out the lowest priced provider. To add some icing to that cake, pick up a quick $150 and get cash back for gas purchases for life with the top cash-back card out there, the Chase Freedom Visa $150 Bonus card. Why people continue to pay cash for gas when credit (usually) costs the same is beyond me. You can always get at least 1% back with a card like that.

I know, many of you have recently complained about gas and you may feel personally insulted. But the local news just makes me want to vomit in my mouth sometimes and my wife can’t take my diatribes. So, there you have it. A Happy Easter post for you on gas price complaints.

I completely agree with you. The last time gas prices went up like this, I bought a car that gets 42 mpg and I’ll drive it until the wheels fall off. Then I’ll get another one. Sure, I dislike filling up for $40 when it used to cost $30, but I’ll live and so will everyone else.

I do commute 100 miles round trip every day, not because I own a huge home but because my family is here. And that’s a choice. I don’t complain about the drive to work – I spend less than $250 a month on gas, which is still less than people who work locally and drive Hummers.

Unfortunately I don’t think it matters how high gas prices go. Some of us will change our lifestyles to adapt, while others will break out the credit cards and continue living above their means.

Not sure if anybody is really whining, b/c that wouldn’t make sense. The reason why gas is where it is is b/c people are willing to pay for it. It’s that simple. If they didn’t like gas prices at these levels, then they’d do something about it i.e change cars, take public transportation etc.

Have you turned on the news? Every time gas prices rise, the rants start, the finger-pointing; heck, even Obama is now pretending it’s “speculators” and investigating. We saw this with the Bush administration as well. Look at ourselves! The truth hurts!

Seriously, I don’t see anybody whining. I see people high fiving themselves as the markets rocket higher! Who cares about gas when you are making bank in the markets? Gas prices are like a rounding error for many.

Just because europeans pay more doesn’t make it right. I’m sure food is also more expensive there but I’m not gonna pay 10 for a hamburger just because speculators are running up the price in wall street. Yeah.

Well, I didn’t say it’s “right”, but it is the current reality. And Wall Street “running up prices”? You’ve been listening to Obama too much. I’ve always been amused by the “blame the speculators” conspiracy theory politicians point to (rather than their voting base).

I’ll agree with you on all but one point: I’ve about &*^@#*( had it with bloggers who espouse the “just move” philosophy over and over and over again. Like changing where you live is that easy.

Yes, I chose where I live. When I bought my place 7 years ago I had a different job. One that was 15 mins from my house. Then I lost my job. Then I found a new one – as a contractor. Which means I go where the client sends me. Unfortunately the main office is 15 miles from my house – a nearly hour drive in what has been called one of the top 5 worst traffic cities in the US. I didn’t CHOOSE to lose my job. I didn’t CHOOSE to have to take another one 15 miles away (argue the point if you will that I chose to accept it – but when you search for 4 months and get one offer, you take the offer you get so you don’t have to sleep in a cardboard box under a bridge).

Sure I could sell my place and move closer to work. Sure. In the worst housing economy in years. I could take a loss on my place and pay moving costs and all those other costs. And by the way, I don’t live in a McMansion. I live in a 2 bedroom townhouse with a housemate.

So could we PLEASE stop with the “move closer to work/town” and “you choose to have a commute” BS that everyone seems to espouse as the ultimate solution to commuting issues. I didn’t “sign up” for a 50 mile commute. I signed up to live around the corner from my office. But things change and being told I’m stupid and it’s my fault for that really really really pisses me off.

Sure, we went through a potential move recently and it’s no joke. $35K in transaction fees just to play ball. You aren’t the typical example epitomized in this rant. You didn’t “choose” to have the crazy commute. But surely you know some who do. And they’re complainers!

Nice post. Here in the UK, fuel prices are double what they are in America. It’s not that we love oil any more than the US. Ridiculously high fuel tax means that transport is just really expensive across the board so we have no choice. In general there is no cost benefit to using trains either.

If gas prices in the US went up by 90%, you’d still be paying less than I do! So I agree with Darwin. Quit yer complainin! You don’t know how good you’ve got it.

I feel the pain of it like anyone else, but personally, I think higher prices are an excellent thing. Hopefully it will drive development of alternatives technologies. I don’t know about anyone else, but personally I’m embarressed that as a race our primary method of transportation involves burning the remains of ancient organisms.

I agree, its rediculous that we are letting our supposedly intelligent species get so close to the wire before we come up with safe alternative energy solutions, and there is every reason in the world for those who own the declining reserves to jack up the price to reflect what it is actually worth, i.e., what one is willing to pay.

Makes me glad I decided to opt for efficiency when I bought a Yaris, I just wish the damn car had better safety reviews. Besides that it annoys me when people complain about gas prices. It’s a finite resource open to market manipulation and other factors. What do you expect to happen and why would you let yourself be led around by a resource that you have no control over?

Or hey, how about realizing that you can buy your small piece of the pie through the stock market. Oil stocks are cheap, very cheap in both nominal terms (less than $100 a share for some of the largest, most stable oil companies) and in terms of price-to-earnings, so go buy them up and profit from it.

Coast to red lights. drive around 80kmh (depending on car). keep engine rpms low. lots of way to save on gas, but people’s time preference is too low. paying between 5 and 6 in Canada, so yeah, you guys should stop complaining. high prices and they investigate the companies for “illegal” profits, lol. biz of life had a great post about that.
btw have the oil companies fully compensated victims of oil spills? I’d be more concerned
about that if I was in charge of taxpayer money.

Okay, I admit it, I complain about gas prices. But mostly because it’s an easy way to make small talk – like the weather and traffic. 🙂 I live about 30 miles from work (I live with my partner who works 35 miles in the opposite direction, so if we wanted to live together without finding new jobs, we pretty much have a bad commute for both), so the gas is really starting to crimp my style. Fortunately, I’ve just started traveling for work for about 2 weeks out of the 4 weeks every month, and I can work from home one day a week when I’m not traveling, so that has helped IMMENSELY with the gas. I probably spend less money on gas now than I did before I went on the road.

I do disagree though with you on the oil price. The fundamental “supply and demand” that should create a market price are not responsible for the current high price. Speculation is in the oil market more than ever before… It doesnt stop there though take a look at all commodities right now. The influx in commodity ETFs just in the first three month is increadible. I just read the other day that – not sure if it was silver- ETFs alone had an influx of 1 billlion this far in the year.

Speculation is driving the market up, the more important question that we should ask ourselves is: how many of us invest in funds that speculate in commodities? I believe it is the country itself driving up the prices through their investment portfolio. If no one buys gold I am pretty sure the price of gold will be around 100 dollars an ounce within a day. Gold has no real value besides the “bling factor”.

The fuel prices are an outrage plain and simple! For those of us who do live a frugal life and are cost conscience your argument is not applicable. The people in Europe are not better off, they have horrible teeth and dental work! The United States has its own resources and we need to be utilizing them. The current president Barrack Obama is quite happy with high fuel prices –more suppression to the American working people. We need to save our country not turn it into an oppressed dictatorship! Obama needs to hit the bricks and so do you!

Lol what do teeth have to do with gas prices? Lower cosmetic dentistry standards are more of a cultural thing than an economic thing. Many cultures simply do not (well, did not) share the American obsession with teeth. As globalization continues, that’s rapidly changing. I live in the UK. Here, the government pays only for essential i.e. health related dental work. If you want your teeth to actually look good, of course, you have to pay for that. A lot of people opt not to pay the extra and some just don’t go to the dentist for preventative treatments because they were historically taught “go to the dentist when you have tooth ache” rather than “go to the dentist regularly to prevent dental problems”. Add to this the fact that most European countries don’t fluoridate water like the US does, I think based on health concerns. Again, these are all cultural issues.

After reading your article, I would like nothing more than to punch you square in the face repeatedly. The smug way you present your views annoy me. There IS NO place to live closer to where I work other than in that town itself and that town is a shit hole filled with immigrants. No, I shouldnt have to trade my truck for some pos hybrid shit box that I dont know how to work on and will probably fall apart at 100k miles.
The developing countries (china and india) that are putting an increased strain on the worlds oil supplies and helping drive up the price of oil should be forced to stop. Those countries are shit holes and should remain that way. They got along fine for 1000 years with horses and rickshaws, they can do it for another 1000. I dont give a shit if Europeans pay $8.00 a gallon for gas, this isnt Europe. We are not all eco-sissy, wine sipping queers all living cramped into cities (living in the city sucks). We do not have good public transportation in our cities and trying to implement public transportation into all the rural areas of our country would be an exercise in futility. If I was presented with the opportunity to shoot all the Arabs, other sand people, and everyone in developing countries in the head to somehow make gas cheaper here and suffer no legal ramifications, there would be a lot of dead people.

Seriously dude? Your email address is mr.benchalot280@yahoo.com ? And I’m hoping the “280” isn’t what you consider a sizable benchpress because then you look even sillier.
What are you compensating for? (besides your intellect)?
Just read your closing statement. You are completely ignorant. You’re blaming Arabs for your problems?
Look in the mirror. Oh, actually, I’m sure you do each time after a BIG workout tough guy.
And threatening violence…because you think you’re anonymous. But you’re not; wrong again. IP address genius.

The whole problem is, we have way too many people for the planet to support. When you have exponential growth, where the population gets bigger and bigger, the shrinking energy sources get eatten up before you know it. Growing populations and expectations are going to make future life more and more difficult. War and disease are very ugly. We are on the brink of discovering a cure for aging and this will allow us to get smarter and smarter. We must reduce our populations thru effective birth control! Having “Parent Pageants” and democratically electing those who will have children will be the best way I can think of, to select the best progeny, because there is a kind of super-intelligence in the masses … if it can be harnassed. The sooner the better. It may be that the Fukushima disaster will cause world wide cancers anyway, but I think it would be best to select the brightest most able parents for having children. Sorry if this is politically incorrect, I understand that, but I think its time we all face up and create the kind of future we need to survive in health.

And who will be making these decisions on who stays and who goes or who gets to have a child and who does not? You? Darwin Monty? No thanks, if you and your pals think there are too many of us, go get together, get some Nikes and wait for the Hale-Bopp to come around. Eugenics for progressives…..by progressives….leave the rest of us alone.

Value’s actually in the eye of the beholder. Speculation is part of “fundamental” supply and demand, however you could always ask yourself where the speculators are getting all of these dollars from and why they are putting so much into commodities. Is it a big mistake or is it the best alternative (for now) amongst many?

Heh, great work. I personally like the commuting part. No one forced them to move way the hell out there – they did it to keep up appearances “If we dont have a big house, no one else will think we are successful”

Anyone not complaining is stupid! I disagree with most of what people are saying about not complaining – we damn sight should complain. Obama needs to be booted out of office never to return and take all of the people who voted for him along with him and never return! All along he should have been finding alternatives for us to find oil here, and until then, the government as well should have been finding ways to make it hard for those other countries to buy from us what they get – by charging the hell out of the stuff to them in return! Those dam- greedy bas’ers…. It hurts everyone. And I will comment to all of your comments above – you are wrong when you mention a choice to live far away from work, or buying a vehicle that is good on gas, living in a McMansion!!! What planet are you from? We struggle just to make a mortgage payment now due to a loss of income and we are devastated. We cannot even put food on our table or take care of our ONE child due to the price of gas being what it is. My spouse took a job, and mind you the only job offer he had, by driving a long distance away from home, and it is killing us to pay for the gas in both vehicles. Then we have to decide between gas and medications that he takes and that my daughter NEEDS to get by, and not being able to afford even health insurance. So get off your soap box and realize people are hurting. You live in a 300K home or higher – you have no clue what the rest of us live like and would give anything to have a nicer and bigger house for our family. We live in a 3 story townhouse that it took us a live savings to even get into, and it was a huge mistake. Like the other person said – sell it? The market sucks and we cannot sell it and have been trying for over a year now. It is truly sad we cannot give our daughter what she deserves, and we waited 18 years to have her. I feel sorry for the next generation growing up with all of this crap, and our older family members that have already passed on would turn over in their graves to see how the world has become, and they are better off not being here to see it. They could never adjust to all this crap! It is a crying shame. I have been out of a job for nearly 4 months and been applying and looking now since that time, and no luck yet. Not very nice to think we could lose our home and have to walk away and all of us be sleeping in boxes on the street just because of the price of gas. The president and his cabinet and people in DC have no clue about us real people out here and how we struggle and need help, but who helps us? They are too busy sending government money and aide to every other country out there, that would never think of doing the same for us! And why would we have such a high deficit? Gee, have no clue! All of his expenses are paid for including car payments, gas, etc. and they just have no clue. The woman next in line if Obama would get assassinated or something, was asked about gas prices, and she said “I do not think 1.89 is much for gas? Is she kidding? Just goes to show you that all the people out there that live high off the hog can afford the gas and not complain, and probably have 4-5 kids, and can afford insurance, and the wife does not work, and they have 3-4 cars, and at least 2 of them are big SUVs or gas hogs. But check the stats on the average americans and you will see I am not the only one that feels this way. I was way too proud to ask for any financial help until recently, and was turned down in every aspect. All my creditors are threatening to disconnect every utility we have if not paid, and my husband does not make enough to pay all of it. This is causing a lot of stress and tension in our home, and upsetting our 9 year old terribly! We have no family to ask to borrow money from, and even if we did, when would they get paid back? So anyone out there that feels we should stop complaining, and has the extra money to spare for the high gas prices, would you consider sending me some charity here so I could pay my bills and afford gas, so I could get a job to help support my family? I will take any donations I can get. I have even had to stoop so low as to sell my daughter’s new Christmas gifts and personal stuff, and her birthday toys, etc. on ebay and amazon just to earn some money, and she is more than upset with me. If I had $600-$700 right now I could pay my bills for a month and get some food on our table, and put gas in my tanks for the month of May. So let me know if you could afford to do so, but obviously I know no one will help me, so I will not and cannot stop complaining about the prices of gas. Get real!

Gas prices have been artificially low in America for decades – we pay less than everyone else and we consume the most. How can you argue with that? We’re still paying less now than what the rest of the world paid when you weren’t complaining about the price.

Darwin, When you decide to write a controversial article as you did here than you should expect and respect both points of view. I noticed in your responses that if others agree with you then it was all high fives but if they didn’t they were ignorant, selfish, or living outside there means.
You either like being the devils advocate or you sir’ are ignorant to how a debate works. And this topic is very much subject to debate on how you look at it.
BTW, European countries are alot smaller than most cities in the US so to compare the prices of fuel there versus the US is not an accurate comparison.

Dear Darwin:
You, sir, are an inconsiderate, nearsighted, grade A asshole. I don’t know how you get off telling people to shut up about the fact that many of us CANNOT afford to spend our rent, utility and grocery money to an industry which would be filthy rich even if gasoline were a dollar a gallon.

Your idea that those of us who can’t afford $4 per gallon gasoline must be driving “gas guzzlers” is preposterous. My wife and I both drive cars which get upwards of 30 miles per gallon. Sure, there are cars that get more, but since the price of gasoline is absurdly high, we can’t afford a monthly payment on a hybrid. By your logic, I’d imagine you’ll tell me that it’s my fault that I didn’t pursue a more lucrative line of work, right?

We do not buy bottled water or make other wasteful purchases. We clip coupons and purchase groceries only when they are on sale, and cook at home rather than going out to eat. We have had to change phone plans and cut back on other utilities so we can afford to drive to our jobs. Which leads me to this gem…

It’s our fault we don’t work right near our home. Are you f***king kidding me? Have you seen what the economy is like and what the unemployment rate is in this country? Kids who ring a register at McDonalds and sweep the floor at 7-11 (absolutely no disrespect towards individuals working those jobs) get to work a mile from home. Adults in career positions who need to make a salary do not necessarily get that choice. My wife and I work at jobs which pay us enough of a salary to cover our bills and expenses. If those jobs happen to be half an hour or 45 minutes away, are we not supposed to take those jobs and be unemployed instead? And your idea of what an affordable home is, and your opinion that people don’t want a modest house, is just as ridiculous as your cute little remark about commuting to work. Maybe 300-400k is affordable for someone who bought a house 15 years ago and has some equity built up. However, let me tell you this. Many of us in our 20s and 30s, who have never owned a house, cannot afford to save enough money for any sort of down payment, nor afford a 3k per month mortgage. When our parents were young adults and purchased their homes, the difference between salaries and costs of living was nowhere near what it is today. Not to mention that gas was a dollar a gallon. And don’t even try to tell me that fuel prices going up 400% in 15 years is a result of inflation.

Yes, we ALL know how much more expensive gas is in Europe, blah blah blah. Ok, so their lifestyle is different than ours. Why don’t you go move there? There’s a reason Europe is called the “old world”. Their infrastructure was not built around oil powered vehicles. Europe was developed long before cars and trucks and their lifestyle evolved differently because of that. However, the great majority of this country was developed after the Industrial Revolution, and thus we have situations like people who need to travel 50 miles to a job they can afford to live on. Having grown up in New York City, I’m a big fan of public transportation. I prefer it to driving and would use it if it were available here. But due to expenses, one of them being the cost of gasoline, we can’t afford to move there right now. So we’re stuck driving, and have NO CHOICE bu to commute to the jobs which pay us a salary on which we can live.

You seem to be too much of a hippie to realize that we should be A. Purchasing as many American made products as we can, so our dollars stay here. I’ll bet your don’t drive an American car (gas guzzlers, right? Mine gets 35 miles a gallon). And B. We should be questioning some of our local politicians, since most of our government’s policies don’t make it affordable to live here. Why can we afford to send space probes out of the solar system, but can’t do anything about gas prices? Why do we subsidize CORN (!!!!!) but do nothing about rising fuel prices?

You are sadly nearsighted and really need to rethink what you say before you criticize the common working-class American. Sure, maybe there are some well off people living in their McMansions and buying Perrier by the truckload (which I agree with you is stupid), but for every one of them, there’s ten of us who will be hungry and on the street if fuel prices aren’t controlled.

Lawrence brings up several good counter points to your ridiculous argument and this is the best reply you can muster? Is that because you know he is right? You dont sound like a hippy to me, you sound like some bleeding heart, PC, liberal douche bag who is not in touch with how normal people live. And look up my IP. Want my facebook too? Just keep running your site asshole, like your going to come kick my ass. Your probably 5 ft 5, 300 lbs and spend your free time (when your not writing shit like this) playing WoW and eating cheetos.

I gotta hand it to ya; I’ve never, ever been called a hippie, liberal, bleeding heart or anything along those lines. I’m a fiscal conservative, social moderate and I’ve never been to a protest in my life. Hippies dumped piss on my father on his way to Vietnam and they don’t support our troops now. I do not affiliate myself with hippies in any way, shape or form. Just callin’ it like I see it. Take a read on some of my other stuff and you might actually enjoy it :>

Are you suggesting a country’s citizens can topple governments with the internet but can’t impact the price of gas with the same tactics — I am not so sure about that!

We all certainly have to reduce our own energy use. Personally I have had the insulation upgraded in our small bungalow above what is recommended — and we upgraded the windows too. We also had a high efficiency furnace installed as well. I have refrained from putting in a dishwasher because they are real energy pigs, so we still do them the old fashon way — like you and I did when we were kids:) Thermostat is 64-66F — we wear sweaters and are perfectly comfortable. Now that I am retired, I walk almost everywhere I go — usually 12-18 km/day, as my weight loss can attest! In fact I think I am only on my second tank of gas since leaving work 8 weeks ago. My wife takes the TTC to work.

For me this is as much about being manipulated as it is high gas prices. Gas prices are set on the futures market — a market that was orginally developed to help those who truly needed to hedge against dramatic price movements in that commodity because they were part an integral part of their input cost of business. But now anyone can (and does) play in the futures market and **never take actual delivery of the commodity**. That is what I have an issue with — it is just too easy to develop a price profile that has no connection to the actual supply-demand equation. Governments do not care because they accrue huge taxes with this disconnect. And this is hugely damaging to the economy overall as well. GDP rates are already being adjusted downwards because of oil prices.

In any event, certainly this is a complex issue and can be discussed from many perspectives, but for me, I do not like power plays by huge conglomerates that do not give a rats behind about anything except their bottome line — despite what they say, greed is not good … I think we can agree there.

Do you have crazy people like this in your country? This is the most strange bunch of commentors I’ve had on a single post in ages. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m laughing as I read these comments, but I’m scratching my head.

Yes, we are all so strange. Its weird that you can just dismiss the problems millions of people face everyday as just minor annoyances and tell us its our own fault and then receive hateful posts in response. I dont get it either.

Idc if you have my IP, I use the same name for everything so its not hard to get my real address. I never once threatened violence, I said your post makes me want to punch you, not that I would. And I have had that email since I was 17. Could you do 280 when you were 17? I doubt it. Mona lisa leaves you a good comment full of points and the best you can come back with is “Gas prices have been artificially low in America for decades – we pay less than everyone else and we consume the most. How can you argue with that? We’re still paying less now than what the rest of the world paid when you weren’t complaining about the price.”? Really? Do you run this site? If not and you just work for it, how the hell did you get this job? You are an idiot.

So ass hat, why dont you answer a few of the questions people have asked here. What are we supposed to do when we live far from work, cant afford a more fuel efficient car (shouldnt have to buy one anyway) and cant just move closer to work? Just because you live in your penthouse suite in some cesspool of a city and your “work” consists of playing on a computer all day, doesnt mean everyone else does. Some of us have real jobs and do real work. Have you ever had a callous on your hand? Ever changed your own spark plugs? How about re shingle your own roof? Your a sissy city boy. Dont talk down to us and give us suggestions on how to better a situation you know nothing about, its just insulting.

That’s a lotta questions.
So, look, there are a lot of people that have struggled their whole lives or were caught up in the downturn and are now struggling. This post isn’t geared toward them. It’s geared toward people who should have known better, people who DO know better, and they’re making irresponsible decisions, as if the gravy train of cheap money, low gas prices and government handouts is going to last forever. It isn’t. And when the pendulum swings the other way, they freak out. The yuppies exemplified in the article are who this is geared toward.

Work? Yes, I’ve done plenty of hard, manual labor; lugging 100 lb bags of feed up and down barn ladders to dozens of farms a day, splitting wood by hand; the worst was probably a summer with the tree service clearing lots, chipping and hauling some pretty big stuff. I also witnessed how people treat blue collar workers (because I was one) and it pissed me off. I ALWAYS treat people we hire with respect, offer them a drink and then tip them. Moving guy, delivery guy, whatever. It used to be me and might be again someday if things don’t go my way.

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover (or a blog by 1 post)!

I think it was the 9th local news bit that night that sent me over the edge.

Don’t agree with everything you said.. but a few points are valid!!!! Great read of comments on button’s pushed…. . you sent your readers over the edge.. LMAO..

Now.. off to the airport… I think I’ll drive my F450 4×4 that gets 11 mpg… or .. should I take the bike that gets 50? … Nah .. I’ll drive the vette that gets upwards of 30 mpg….. and fill it with premium!

p.s. i really do agree with most of what you said.. keep it up 🙂 Always nice to see another viewpoint 🙂

So this is where all of the poor little whhiners/liberals come to when they need to whine and cry about how poor they are and how unfair everyone elses success is. Whaaaa, Whaaaa….it’s not fair. Get a life you diaper sucking wussies. I have an idea that seems to work very well for me, when prices go up….I go out and make more money!

darwin you suck you have too much time on your hands creating a website like this you expect everybody to be Donald trump nobody is perfect nobody has a crystal ball just like you i have a 2000 ford windstar its a big gas tank and it would take nearly 100 bucks to fill it up, but you know what i try to make the best of it even though its a large tank its not a gas guzzler like an extursion that has a 50 gallon tank and only gets 8 miles to a gallon, oh yeah im also a truck driver the average tractor trailer these days takes a 1000 bucks to fill up try and bitch about that, we cant avoid it cause america would be on its knees and we wouldnt be able to buy food or clothes or even those wonderful fuel efficient cars trucks make this county running and without them you wouldnt have your precious sh@t so shut your pie hole and get a life

Sometimes I wonder how much less dependent the country would be on gas if not for the extensive road subsidies over the decades… highways can definitely be a big economic boost but the resources probably would have been allocated more efficiently if not for those subsidies. Truckers drive on mostly free highways; it’s a bit hard for alternatives to compete with that especially with the low gas prices until recent times.

You are completely out of touch if you think that a 500 to 700 k home is “moderately” priced. Why don’t you actually look up what housing costs in other states besides the ones on the coasts?! You live in one of the most over priced, over valued regions in the country.

You are a fucking idiot! You must make more then the average median cause I can barely afford the gas I pay for now. How can an oil company profit over 90 BILLION and no one say shit!? I am coming to think that your another oil profit bitch that cant live on 20 million a year. Now lets talk about the price of a barrell of oil! Its in the mid 80 dollar range and the fucking gas prices have yet to come down. Explain that!

You had me at “average median”. Classic.
But hey, talkin’ about gas prices, there’s an ETF that tracks US gas. UGA. A chart view going back to inception in March 08 shows gas has declined 7% over that period. Not exactly extortion…http://www.google.com/finance?q=uga

Please living far away from work isn’t always one’s fault..Got laid off was close now I travel 35 miles one way vs 5 before..Bad market to sell my house and buy a new one plus I want to make sure my new job will be there in the long term…Not Whining but saying we live life in a fast paced times….As far the price of gas the government can change it in a heart beat…Increase the margin requirment to 40% instead of the current 5%…Look silver went from $50 to down around $30… thank U sorry about the “whine”